Democratic House Speaker Michael Madigan declared Wednesday that the state income tax rate should be raised back to at least 5 percent to help balance the state's out-of-whack finances.

In doing so, Madigan potentially gave new life to Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner's argument that Democrats are to blame for the stalemate in Springfield because they're intent on only raising taxes to dig out of the state budget deficit. That's likely to be a GOP attack point in next year's House and Senate campaigns as Republicans try to cut into significant Democratic majorities.

The comments came as Madigan, following a rare public speech, answered a question at a City Club of Chicago luncheon posed by a Republican strategist who wanted to know how high taxes should go. A famously disciplined and veteran politician, Madigan seemed aware of the risks of his response even as the words came out of his mouth.

"Let me avoid creating a headline for tomorrow's newspaper," he joked, then proceeded to create one.

"A good place to begin, good place to begin would be the level we were at before the income tax expired," Madigan said, referring to the 5 percent individual income tax rate and 7 percent corporate tax rate set in 2011 as part of a four-year temporary tax hike.

"And starting there, you can go in whatever direction you want to go," Madigan said.

The individual tax rate rolled back to 3.75 percent and the corporate rate declined to 5.25 percent in January after lawmakers decided, at Rauner's urging, not to renew the higher rates.

Rauner did not comment on Madigan's tax-hike call, but Senate Republican leader Christine Radogno did, deriding the speaker for what she said was "proposing a whopping 33 percent income tax (rate) increase — with no reforms to change the way we do business in Illinois."

"It's outrageous and shows what we Republican legislators and Gov. Rauner are up against in the state budget negotiations," Radogno said in a statement emailed to reporters shortly after Madigan made his remarks.

Illinois has been operating for more than five months without full spending authority because of a political disagreement between Rauner's Republicans and the Madigan-led Democrats who control the General Assembly.

Rauner wants pro-business, union-weakening laws approved before he'll discuss ways to raise revenue to reduce the need for spending cuts and balance the state's books. Democrats, who are aligned with unions politically and philosophically, oppose the measures and say Rauner shouldn't be linking them to the budget issue.

It's that disagreement that brought Madigan out into the spotlight, where he spoke to the City Club for the first time in 15 years.

"I wanted to take this opportunity to talk about my view on the budget impasse in Springfield, the importance of the budget deficit problem being the No. 1 problem facing the government of the state of Illinois," Madigan told reporters after the event. "And I'm very pleased that I was able to use this forum to speak to all those questions."

Madigan has said all year that he wants to see a combination of spending cuts and revenue raising to solve the state's budget shortfall. When previously asked for specific tax hikes he would support, he cited a proposed constitutional amendment to raise taxes on millionaires to help pay for schools, a plan with dubious prospects for success but also a shot at the wealthy Rauner. Wednesday marked the first time Madigan definitively said he wants to raise the income tax and offered some numbers.

Afterward, Madigan said that he is focused on the income tax rather than expanding the state sales tax — an option Rauner favors — because "my view is that taxation ought to be based upon ability to pay."

During his campaign for governor, Rauner proposed broadening the state sales tax to include more than 30 business services. But just months before the November 2014 election, Rauner acknowledged there might be a need to raise the income tax — though he did not suggest a level.

Instead, Rauner said voters shouldn't get hung up on short-term tax rates as long as he could institute what were then nonspecific "structural reforms" and bring the income tax rate down to 3 percent by the end of his first term.

Rauner has since outlined those "structural reforms" to include union-weakening changes in collective bargaining rights, limits on compensation claims by workers who are injured on the job, a tightening of the state's lawsuit system, term limits on elected officials and a new way of drawing legislative maps.

As Democrats have rejected some of those proposals and refused to even consider others, Rauner has tried to make the case that they're not serious about fixing Illinois' financial mess.

"We're in this strange place where the legislature just wanted to pass a big spending plan and then said, 'Governor, you decide how to fix it, we'll tell you how much we want to spend because we like to spend, the rest of it's your problem,'" Rauner said last week. "Well, that's not very reasonable. … I've said if I get structural reform, I will raise taxes. I've said it, and believe me, I do not want to raise taxes at all, I'd like to reduce taxes, but for a little while we may have to raise taxes and work them down over time."

On Wednesday, Madigan would not say whether he wants a permanent or temporary income tax hike. The speaker said he has not discussed specifics of an income tax increase with Rauner. "We've talked generally about revenue, never specific," Madigan said.

One Democrat close to Madigan said the speaker has told Rauner that raising the income tax to its higher 2011 level is necessary given the rate of spending by the state without a formal budget.

The Democrat, who asked not to be identified because he was not authorized to speak publicly on the issue, said he did not believe Madigan's declaration handed Rauner "anything new" to use against Democrats.